Ford family members in this collection are all related to Gordon Lester Ford (1823-1891), businessman, lawyer and collector of Americana. They include his father, Lester Ford (1798-1888) of Lebanon, Conn.; his mother, Eliza Burnham Ford (d. 1834); his stepmother, Lucy Burnham Ford (cousin of Eliza); and Eliza's brother Gordon Burnham (1803-1885); Gordon Ford's siblings, Marcia, Eliza (d. ca. 1886), William, and Henry B. Ford; and four of his children, Kathleen Ford Turle (b. 1856), Rosalie Ford Barr (b. 1859), Mabel Ford Mayo-Smith (b. 1863), and Malcolm Webster Ford (1862-1902), an amateur athlete in the 1880s. Members of the Fowler family of New England and the Chauncey family of Connecticut were related to the Fords. Collection consists of the papers of various members of Gordon Ford's family. Ford correspondence, 1833-1910, contains family letters and some letters of a general nature. Burnham correspondence, 1834-1864, includes letters of Gordon Burnham and Annie McClane Farrer, who was a Burnham relative. Fowler family correspondence, 1818-1870, consists chiefly of letters to and from William Chauncey Fowler and his wife Harriet W. Fowler. Chauncey papers, 1744-1857, include correspondence, deeds, legal records, and other materials. General and unidentified correspondence, 1833-1906, contains letters whose sender or receiver cannot be determined, and letters of individuals who are apparently unrelated to the Ford family. Personal and family papers include juvenalia, school records and memoranda of activities of Malcolm Ford and his sisters. Notes and memoranda consist of ephemera, either not of a personal nature or only indirectly concerned with the Fords. Unidentified papers are short writings and documents; printed matter includes clippings and other materials. Prints consist of items, such as pictures of notable Americans, views and buildings. Other materials include maps, photographs, diaries, ledgers, letterbooks, and related items.

Biographical/historical information

The Gordon Lester Ford (1823-1891) of the Gordon L. Ford Papers was a businessman, lawyer, a prominent collector of Americana, and a resident of Brooklyn, New York. The collection incorporates papers of Gordon Ford's father, Lester Ford (1798-1888) of Lebanon, Connecticut, of his mother, Eliza Burnham Ford (d. 1834), and of his stepmother, Lucy Burnham Ford (cousin to Eliza). Burnham papers include those of Gordon Burnham (1803-1885), brother of Eliza, who at the time of her death took her son Gordon into his New York City home and business. Mrs. Farrer, nee Annie McLane, who figures in the collection, was a relative of the Burnham family. In addition, there are papers of Gordon Ford's siblings, Marcia, Eliza, William, and Henry B. Ford. Eliza Ford (d. ca. 1886), a schoolteacher, worked in Brooklyn for many years.

Scope and arrangement

The bulk of the collection is material of four children of Gordon Ford; Kathleen Ford Turle (b. 1856), Rosalie Ford Barr (b. 1859), Mabel Ford Mayo-Smith (b. 1863), and Malcolm Webster Ford (1862-1902), a successful amateur athlete of his day. Along with that of Gordon Ford there are separate collections for his wife Emily Fowler Ford (1826-1893) and the rest of their children, Worthington (1858-1941), Paul (1865-1902), and Emily Ford Skeel (1867-1958). The accession records of these collections contain further biographical information. Also it must be noted that some of the early correspondence of the Gordon L. Ford Papers overlaps with early Ford family correspondence.